The Chateau

January 29.

Wow, bad movies really are painful.

The Chateau is a comedy about two American brothers (Yes, Paul Rudd and Romany Malco play brothers, and no not like brothas, they are brothers. (Malco is adopted.) A joke which they use about 1,000 times.) who inherit a chateau, along with its staff, in France.

They think they are going to get there, sell it, and pocket the cash but zaniness ensues. It's really not worth getting into what happens or why, honestly, it's not. There's thousands of great movies and there's no reason to watch this ridiculousness.

Rating: Hate

The Affair of the Necklace

January 29.

No, no, no, no, no. No.

Hilary Swank may have won an Oscar, but she's awful, awful, as a down-on-her-luck aristocrat in pre-revolutionary France. Awful.

I found this movie because I watched a documentary about Marie Antoinette and thought this true story of a necklace scheme, which is credited for starting the French Revolution, was fascinating. But The Affair of the Necklace did not translate. The bad script and bad acting did not bring the story to life or shed a new light on the doomed queen of France.

The whole movie was flat. Swank is not sexy and not even a little French. I still think the story of the extravagant necklace, which the queen might have been trying to buy secretly, as not to incite the people of France who were starving to death, is interesting. Especially since the queen claimed she never agreed to buy the necklace but because the citizens believed the story, or wanted to believe it, it put them over the top and started the French Revolution, which left the queen and her husband headless, and the monarchy dead forever.

But why with such great material, why are so many movies so bad?

Rating: Hate

Marie Antoinette

January 28.

As a lot of you know, I am obsessed with the British Royals and France. So when I came across this PBS documentary about the last queen of France, Marie Antoinette, I couldn’t resist.

The queen, who famously did or did not tell the starving people of France to eat cake, is such an interesting historical character I can’t believe there aren’t more movies about her. Of course there’s the Sofia Coppola film, and although that movie is pretty and deals with the lavish lifestyle the queen had it doesn’t get to the parts that I was excited to learn about in this documentary.

It explains the affair with the necklace, which was turned into a bad movie a few years ago and was the turning point for the French revolution. It appeared that the queen was sneaking around buying a ridiculously expensive necklace while her people were starving. Whether that’s true or not, no one really knows.

Another aspect of her life the movie looks at is the years after she was taken from Versailles until she was beheaded. I guess I always thought she was killed the same night, but that’s not the case.

This documentary makes me wish there were some great movies about the queen and the French Royals. I guess I’ll just have to find a good book.

Rating: Like

The Heart Specialist

January 16.

The Heart Specialist is almost a good movie. It’s kinda funny and sort of touching. But I had a hard time getting passed the bad production and the choppiness.

The story follows a Harvard Medical School graduate to an internship in Miami where his ex-girlfriend now lives. Ray becomes friends with Sidney, the chief resident and a woman, who is kind of Sidney’s girlfriend, I think, played by Zoe Saldana. The movie quickly becomes about Sidney, who is a writer and a comedian in addition to being a doctor.

I don’t think every movie should be a mystery but when the story is building up to a reveal that I figured out 40 minutes ago I tend to get annoyed. So I won’t say what the big surprise is here, but if you watch the movie you will know long before you’re told.

Rating: Ehh

Blue Valentine

January 15.

Well, now I'm depressed.

There are a lot of movies that tell the story of the beginning of a relationship or the end of a relationship. Some even show both, War of the Roses was brutal. But the way Blue Valentine shows snapshots of this married couples start and finish, moving from happy moment to sad, it's wrenching.

Michelle Williams, who was nominated for an Oscar for this role, and Ryan Gosling do an excellent job of playing the young smitten couple as well as the broken married pair.

Usually I agree with one person more than the other, most stories are written that way, but in Blue Valentine it's hard to say who is right and who is wrong. It's just a real, raw marriage that's over.

Rating: Like

Made in Dagenham

January 15.

I love movies set in places – and times – I want to visit, so a film about England in the 1960’s is perfect for me. Made in Dagenham centers on Rita, a wife, mother, and seamstress at the Ford factory in Daggenham, just outside London. She, along with about 200 other women working for Ford, goes on strike to fight for equal pay for women.

Everyone who works at the factory also seems to live with their families in a sort of dorm right on the property. All the women’s husbands also work at the factory, making a lot more money. So with the help of a union rep, played by Bob Hoskins, Rita becomes the face and voice of the Ford women.

 As the strike drags on, and with no seat covers, the factory comes to a halt. No covers, no cars. Rita travels around England to other Ford factories and gets more seamstresses to strike making waves with Ford in the U.S., until she finally gets the attention of national politicians and sets world-wide changes in motion.

Made in Dagenham has great performances, an engaging story, and the music and costumes are fun.

Rating: Like

Season of the Witch

January 9.

So, Season of the Witch stars Nicolas Cage and Clay from Sons of Anarchy as knights in the 1300s-ish and they’re going to transport a witch for some reason.

This seems to be almost horror – witches get hung and drowned before coming back to life to kill the priest who ordered the execution. I’d probably be scared if I wasn’t laughing at the acting and lack of accents. Nic and Ron Perlman, who are way too old to be running around fighting in the crusades, are using some old English words and speech patterns but with their normal accents and modern slang. Wow, it’s bad. I wonder if there was a script or if the actors were just given an outline of the general story like they do on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Note to writers: these guys need a script. The dialogue is absolutely awful. As I watch Perlman, I can see him laughing at the producers for paying him for this.

Most of the action takes place in front of a green screen and there are a lot of creepy moments just for the sake of being creepy. It seems lazy and thrown together. The storytelling isn’t good either. Towards the end Nic starts explaining what just happened while flashbacks from the movie I’m in the middle of watching appear on the screen. I didn’t forget, I’m not that stupid, and this is not that complicated. On a positive note, there are zombie monks. They are good for a laugh if nothing else.

Rating: Hate

Ang tanging ina mo: Last na 'to!

January 8.

I thought I was going to be alone watching Ang tanging ina mo: Last na 'to!, but, nope, it seems the entire Las Vegas Filipino expat population is here with me. It’s mostly old people looking at me wondering what I’m doing here. No one is speaking English and it’s weird to be in a place I’ve been hundreds of times and have it feel totally foreign.

Ang tanging ina mo: Last na 'to! is the third and final installment of a popular Filipino comedy series. I haven’t seen the first two but I read about them in preparation. In the first, the main character, Ina, becomes a single mother of 30 or 12 or some ungodly number of children and she has to figure out a way to raise them and earn a living. Sounds funny, right? Hmm. So in part two, Ina, having her life in order, becomes president of the Philippines. Yes, president of the Philippines. So that’s where part three begins, her kids are growing up and she’s president … of a country.

The movie starts with loud, annoying music followed by loud, annoying talking and it takes me a few seconds to realize there are no subtitles. What?! Umm. I don’t speak Tagalog, or whatever this language is. I have seen tons of foreign movies and it never occurred to me that there wouldn’t be subtitles. I have wondered in the past if I would be able to follow a foreign movie without subtitles and I now know the answer: sort of.

 The problem with this movie isn’t that I don’t understand what they are saying. I really think I would have thought this was stupid even if I understood. The real problem is that it’s so over-the-top, so loud, and so annoying. I can’t believe people are watching this or that it was entered into film festivals. I keep checking the time and it’s not going fast enough. A baby has been crying for nearly half of the movie and normally I’d be mad that the parents didn't take him outside but I am sort of glad for the distraction and I feel his pain.

Without knowing what is being said it’s hard to gauge when the end is coming, but the end does come, finally. 

Rating: Hate

Country Strong

January 8.

So, here I am, bored to tears, watching my first mess of a movie of the year, Country Strong. It isn't long exactly, but it does feel like it won't end.

There are too many main characters - Gwyneth, a country super star fresh out of rehab; McGraw, her asshole of a husband and manager; and the two young wannabes along for the ride. The writer really should have picked whose story this was before trying to jam all their lives down our throats. As the story builds it feels forced and phony. This is not at all like last year's successful movie about a washed up, drunk country star - Crazy Heart, which was authentic and raw.

Country Strong moves along quickly, it has to in order to fit it all in. Alcoholism, dead babies, affairs, parents in prison, lies, music - this movie has it all. The story isn't unfolding as much as is being thrown at us. The scenes don't build and reveal secrets slowly, they just spat out some issue and then the next scene spats out something new and unbelievable. And even without any build up everything is completely predictable.

I don't really like any of the characters but the secondary leads are better than Tim and Gwyneth. It is weird watching Blair Waldorf sing country music, but she's not bad. The young, sweet country crooner, who prefers singing in honky-tonks to good people who just want to hear some good music while they drink their beer, is cute, but his facial hair is distracting. It's long and straight and grows in patches. He needs to shave.

The end came just in time with a big, sad, to some, dramatic finale that, again, is predictable even though there isn't any preparation for it.

Rating: Hate